Council of the Indies Established
Charles V formally constituted the Council of the Indies in 1524 as the supreme governing body for Spain's American possessions. It sat in Spain and followed the court, and it exercised authority that in Europe would have been divided among a dozen institutions. It drafted the laws for the Indies and submitted them to the king; it was the highest court of appeal from colonial tribunals; it nominated every viceroy, governor, judge and treasury official, and every bishop and archbishop under the royal patronage the papacy had granted; it licensed emigration; and it audited the accounts. Its creation reflected a decision about what the Indies were. They were not colonies of Spain but kingdoms of the crown of Castile, held personally by the monarch, which is why they were governed by a separate council and not by the Council of Castile. Its most substantial legislative act was the New Laws of 1542, drafted after Bartolomé de las Casas had spent years pressing the crown on the treatment of the indigenous population. They banned indigenous slavery, restricted the encomienda and ordered it to lapse on the holder's death. The colonists in Peru rebelled and killed the viceroy sent to enforce them, and the inheritance clause was withdrawn. That episode established the pattern of the whole system: comprehensive law issued from Spain, and the formula obedezco pero no cumplo — I obey but do not comply — by which colonial officials acknowledged an order and declined to execute it. The Recopilación of 1680 codified some 6,400 laws.
- Year: 1524 CE
- Category: Political
